Ploughshares Looks at the DC 'Literary Loop'

Ploughshares's Melissa Silverman explores Washington, DC's "literary loop," giving us the inside scoop on the city's increasingly independent, literary-minded, non-profit scene. "Each month, 826DC, a local branch of the student literacy nonprofit co-founded by author Dave Eggers, hosts the lowercase reading series, while the DC café chain Busboys and Poets is home to a range of popular poetry slams, including Sparkle, a 'a queer-friendly and focused reading series' ... [and among] the homegrown events regularly packing the literary-minded into bars in Washington’s hippest neighborhoods, is The Inner Loop, a reading series created by local residents Rachel Coonce and Courtney Sexton." Here's more on this series:

Each reading of The Inner Loop features both emerging and established writers. Those who are more advanced in their literary careers anchor each event, and have included the likes of New York Times bestsellers Carolyn Parkhurst and Dolen Perkins-Valdez, as well as poet James Arthur, a Stegner fellow and Fulbright scholar who has published in the New Yorker and elsewhere.

Alongside these literary successes, up to nine emerging writers each month, chosen by Coonce and Sexton from open submissions, have a chance to build their audience. Local author Tara Campbell began sharing her work at The Inner Loop in 2015. The following year, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities presented Campbell with the 31st Annual Mayor’s Arts Award for Outstanding New Artist and she published her first novel, TreeVolution, with Lillicat Publishers. Melissa Scholes Young, who writes from Washington and teaches at American University, gave her first reading at The Inner Loop in 2014, and in 2017 published her debut novel, Flood, with Center Street/Hatchette. Poet Nicole Tong took The Inner Loop podium in 2015, and her debut collection, How to Prove a Theory, earned the Jean Feldman Poetry Prize in 2017 and, soon after, publication from the Washington Writers’ Publishing House.

As they hosted the monthly reading series, Coonce and Sexton say, they saw growth potential, and slowly began offering new literary opportunities to local writers. Today, they host biannual writing retreats, a podcast called The Inner Loop Radio featuring clips from the reading series and bonus interviews with authors, a summer residency at a Frank Lloyd Wright property in suburban Washington and more. “When we began, we couldn’t have anticipated that we’d be providing all of these opportunities, but it happened organically,” Coonce and Sexton say. “We follow our gut and respond to the community, and beautiful things grow from it.”

More at Ploughshares.